Abortion Statistics: “Inexpedient to Legislate,” Says N.H. House

The New Hampshire House today rejected HB 471, on abortion statistics. The bill would have put New Hampshire in line with the Centers for Disease Control, which has collected statistics for abortion surveillance for many years.

Two hundred legislators voted like people who are afraid of evidence-based public health policy and afraid of political retribution from abortion providers.

How many children are terminated annually? It doesn’t matter, was the unspoken message in Representatives Hall. How many adolescents are aborting their pregnancies? We don’t care. How many late-term abortions? How many repeat abortions? Where are most abortions being done? We don’t want to know.

The bill had stringent provisions to protect the anonymity of patients. Data would have been provided to the CDC in aggregated form. That wasn’t enough for the fearful reps.

Already, in the name of compromise and cooperation, the bill had protected provider anonymity. It thus would have prevented the state from identifying abortion providers with a pattern of leaving patients injured or worse. Even that was not enough to win over abortion apologists.

Somewhere, Kermit Gosnell is nodding his approval.

Time to update the graphic I made a few years ago. I’m running out of room.

The roll call is available at this link from the N.H. General Court web site.

Of the 154 representatives who voted against killing the bill, two are Democrats: Barbara Shaw of Manchester and James MacKay of Concord.

Of the 200 who voted kill the bill, 41 are Republicans. One of them, James McConnell of Swanzey, gave a speech before the vote encouraging his colleagues to kill the bill.

Still think the New Hampshire GOP is a pro-life party?

Credit where it’s due: Reps. Jess Edwards (R-Auburn) and Kathleen Souza (R-Manchester) spoke in support of the bill before the vote, stressing its importance to public health and women’s health. Rep. Larry Gagne (R-Manchester) made sure the ITL motion got a roll call vote.

The ITL motion was preceded by a motion of “ought to pass as amended,” which failed 165-189. Rep. Jeanine Notter (R-Merrimack) gets the credit for asking for a roll call on that one.